The Greek Tycoon's Blackmailed Mistress

The Greek Tycoon's Blackmailed Mistress
LYNNE GRAHAM

He wants her in his bed – but will she stay there…? Aristandros Xenakis is like a panther poised to pounce. Sleek, dark and utterly powerful, soon he’ll taste the sweet victory of revenge… Ella desperately wants access to her baby niece, but the child’s guardian is Aristandros – her ex-fiancé! She’s no choice but to submit to his demand – she must become his mistress!Naïve and unworldly, Ella is not like the groomed, gold-digging females who have previously warmed Aristandros’s bed. Surely it’s only a matter of time before he tires of her…?

‘After seven years, how can we gofrom having no relationship at allinto a living arrangement? Andme—a mistress? It’s crazy.’

Aristandros slowly unfolded his big powerful frame from his seat and strolled towards her like a sleek dark panther on the prowl. His narrowed gaze blazed golden and welded to her, homing in on the soft pink of her mouth. ‘It’s not a problem for me. I find you amazingly attractive…’

‘And that’s all that it takes for you? Lust?’ Ella slung between gritted teeth, with a look of distaste.

‘Lust is all that we need concern ourselves with, glikia mou.’ He lifted a hand and let confident fingertips trace the proud curve of her cheekbone. Blue eyes spitting angry flame, she jerked her head away in a violent rejection of his touch. ‘Let’s keep it simple. I want you in my bed every night.’

Lynne Graham was born in Northern Ireland, and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE RUTHLESS MAGNATE’S VIRGIN MISTRESSTHE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE’S PREGNANT WIFE

THE GREEK

TYCOON’S

BLACKMAILED

MISTRESS

BY

LYNNE GRAHAM

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

THE GREEK TYCOON’S BLACKMAILED MISTRESS

PROLOGUE

‘AN ENCHANTING child,’ Drakon Xenakis remarked as he stood at a window, watching the little girl playing in the lush gardens of his grandson’s villa. ‘She reminds me of someone. I can’t think who…’

Aristandros veiled his brilliant dark eyes, his lean, darkly handsome face unrevealing. He said nothing, although he had made a genetic connection at first glance. In his opinion it was impossible not to: that blonde hair, so pale that it was somewhere between white and silver, and those hyacinth-blue eyes and pouting pink mouth were like miniature identity-tags. Yes, fate had placed an immensely potent weapon in his hands and he would have no qualms about using it to get what he wanted. Aristandros always kept his conscience well under wraps. Neither failure nor consolation prizes were acceptable to him. Without a doubt he would triumph—and winning most often meant breaking the rules.

‘But little girls need mothers,’ Drakon continued, his proud carriage impressively upright in spite of his eighty-two years. ‘And you specialise in—’

‘Beautiful models,’ Aristandros slotted in swiftly, conscious that the older man was likely to take a moralistic viewpoint and employ a more judgemental term for the women who entertained his grandson in the bedroom. ‘Timon, however, left me his daughter to raise, and I have every intention of meeting that challenge.’

‘Timon was a childhood playmate and a cousin, not your brother,’ his grandfather countered in a troubled voice. ‘Are you willing to give up the strings of gorgeous women and the endless parties for the sake of a child who isn’t your own?’

‘I have a large, well-trained and reliable staff. I don’t think Calliope’s impact on my life will be that catastrophic.’ Aristandros had never sacrificed anything for anyone, nor could he imagine doing so. But, even if he did not agree with his grandfather’s views, he respected him and he would allow the older man to have his say.

In any case, few men had more right to talk frankly on the score of family responsibility than Drakon Xenakis. The family name had long been synonymous with dysfunction and explosive scandals. Drakon blamed himself that all his children had messed up spectacularly as adults with their car-crash marriages, addictions and affairs. Aristandros’s father had proved the worst offender of all, and his mother, the heiress daughter of another shipping family, had matched her husband in her appetite for self-indulgence and irresponsibility.

‘If you think that, you’re underestimating the responsibility you’re taking on. A child who has already lost both parents will need a lot of your attention to feel secure. You’re a workaholic, just as I was, Aristandros. We’re brilliant at making money, but we’re not good parents,’ Drakon pronounced, his concern patent. ‘You need to find a wife willing to be Callie’s mother.’

‘Marriage really isn’t my style,’ Aristandros countered coolly.

‘The incident you are referring to took place when you were twenty-five years old,’ Drakon dared to remark, watching the younger man’s bronzed features shutter and chill at that less-than-tactful reminder.

Aristandros shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘It was merely a brief infatuation from which I soon recovered.’

Aristandros was, however, pierced by a familiar tide of bitter anger. Ella. He only had to think her name to feel that anger. Seven years ago, he had put a price on the head of the one woman he’d wanted, and the one woman he still couldn’t forget. He had sworn then that, one day, he would take revenge for what she had done to him. The engagement that never was—an unthinkable rejection. Yet, in some ways, hadn’t Ella done him a favour? The early unanticipated disappointment and the sense of humiliation which she’d inflicted had ensured that Ari had never dropped his guard with a woman again. Instead he had concentrated on enjoying the fruits of his fabulous wealth while he’d steadily grown tougher, harder and more ambitious.

His meteoric success had made him a billionaire and the focus of much fear and envy in the business world. Drakon’s plain speaking was a rare experience for Aristandros, whose aggressive instincts had brought him astonishing ascendancy and influence over others. Soon Ella too would have to make a bonfire of all her fine, noble principles and prejudices and dance to his chosen tune. He was looking forward to it. Indeed, he could hardly wait for the moment when she realised that he had what she most wanted. That first taste of revenge promised to be sweeter than heavenly ambrosia.

CHAPTER ONE

ELLA sat as still as a statue in the smart waiting area.

Locked deep in her stressful thoughts, she didn’t notice the admiring glances she received from the men walking past. In any case, she was accustomed to screening out the unwelcome notice that her physical beauty attracted. Her white-blonde hair, that rare shade most often seen only on children, turned heads as much as her bright blue eyes and slender, shapely figure. Her hands were tightly laced together on her lap, betraying her tension.

‘Dr Smithson?’ the receptionist said. ‘Mr Barnes would like you to go in now.’

Ella got up. Beneath her outward show of calm, a burning sense of injustice was churning in her stomach. Her prayers had gone unanswered and common sense was still being ignored. She could only marvel that her own flesh and blood could have placed her in such a cruel position. When would enough be enough? When would her family decide that she had paid a steep enough price for the decision she had made seven years earlier? She was beginning to think that only her death would settle that outstanding account.

Mr Barnes, the lawyer she had first consulted two weeks earlier—a tall, thin man in his forties reputed to be at the very top of the tree when it came to complex child-custody issues—shook hands with her and invited her to take a seat.

‘I’ve taken advice from the specialists in this area of the law, and I’m afraid I can’t give you the answer that you want,’ he told her with precision. ‘When you donated eggs to your sister to enable her to have a child, you signed a contract in which you relinquished all claim to parental rights over any baby born subsequently—’

‘Yes, I accept that, but as my sister and her husband are now dead surely the situation has changed?’ Ella broke in with the urgency she was trying hard to keep under control.

‘But not necessarily in your favour,’ Simon Barnes responded wryly. ‘As I mentioned before, the woman who carries the baby to birth is deemed to be its legal mother. So, although you are a biological parent, you cannot claim to be the child’s mother. Furthermore, you have had no contact at all with the little girl since she was born, which doesn’t help your case.’

‘I know.’ Ella was pale with strain and a curious feeling of shame, for she still found it hard to handle the fact that her sister, Susie, had pretty much cut her out of her life as soon as her infant daughter had entered the world. Ella had not even been allowed a photo, never mind a visit and a face-to-face encounter. ‘But I’m still legally Callie’s aunt.’

‘Yes, but the fact that you were not named as a guardian in your sister and brother-in-law’s wills does harm your case,’ the lawyer reminded her tautly. ‘Their solicitor will testify that the only party Callie’s late parents were prepared to nominate was Aristandros Xenakis. Don’t forget that he too has a blood tie with the child—’

‘For goodness’ sake, Aristandros was only her father’s cousin, not an uncle or anything!’ Ella proclaimed with helpless heat.

‘A cousin and lifelong friend, who putatively accepted responsibility for the child in writing well before the accident that killed your sister and her husband. I need hardly add that you cannot reasonably hope to fight his claim to custody. He is an extremely wealthy and powerful man. The child is also a Greek citizen, as is he.’

‘But he’s also a single man with an appalling reputation as a hellraiser!’ Ella protested fiercely. ‘Scarcely an ideal father-figure for a little girl!’

‘You are in dangerous territory with that argument, Dr Smithson. You too are single, and any court would question why your own family are not prepared to back you in your claim.’

Ella reddened at the humbling reminder that she stood alone and unsupported. ‘I’m afraid that my relatives will not take a single step that might risk offending Aristandros Xenakis. My stepfather and my two half-brothers rely on his connections to do business.’

The lawyer released his breath in a slow hiss of finality. ‘My advice is to accept that the law is unlikely to get you any closer to seeing the child, and that any attempt to challenge her current custodial arrangements will destroy any goodwill you might hope to create.’

Tears were burning like drops of fire behind Ella’s unflinching gaze as she fought to retain her self-discipline in the face of that bad news. ‘You’re telling me that there’s nothing I can do?’

‘I believe that the wisest move in your circumstances would be to make a personal approach to Aristandros Xenakis. Explain the situation and, on that basis, ask him if he will allow you to have contact with the child,’ Simon Barnes advised ruefully.